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Dessert

Rice Flummery

Rice Flummery is a sweet, thickened milk dessert made with ground rice, milk, sugar, and flavored with rose or peach water or leaves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,374 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Rice Flummery

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pick the rice but do not wash it.

  2. Grind the rice in a coffee or spice mill.

Cook

  1. In a pot, combine the ground rice and new milk.

  2. Boil gently while stirring continuously until thick.

Set and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into moulds.

  2. Sweeten with loaf sugar and flavor with rose water, peach water, or peach leaves.

  3. Let it set and serve with cream.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Rice + rosetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together245 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Sugar + rosetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,584 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Milk + rosetop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,249 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Rice
Ground rice releases starch that thickens the milk as it cooks, giving the flummery its body.
New milk
Forms the liquid base that the rice starch thickens, giving a creamy texture once set.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the mild, starchy flavor of the cooked rice and milk.

The step that matters

Boil gently while stirring continuously until thick. Ground rice starch settles and scorches on the bottom of the pot if left unstirred, and vigorous boiling can cause lumps or burning. Constant stirring over gentle heat keeps the starch evenly dispersed as it thickens.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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